The present disclosure relates generally to geo-location based services, and, more particularly, to determining geographic locations of users for a geo-location based service.
A geographic location of a device and its user may be derived from global positioning system (GPS) coordinates if the device is equipped with a GPS receiver. Alternatively, the location may be determined from a network address assigned to the device by a network communications service provider for cellular or wireless Internet (e.g., WiFi) data connections. GPS is relatively more accurate, but also may be battery intensive, slow and unusable indoors or in deep urban canyons. Network locations derived from cellular or wireless Internet connections are generally less battery intensive, but also less accurate in comparison with GPS.